Peter Deutsch: “Mr. Chairman, in the April 22, 2001, edition of the magazine ``Science,'' researcher Irving Weissman and Nobel Laureate…”

“Mr. Chairman, in the April 22, 2001, edition of the magazine ``Science,'' researcher Irving Weissman and Nobel Laureate David Baltimore said, ``The wrong action here could close the door to an important avenue of scientific and clinical discovery.'' They were talking, of course, about the restrictions on Federal funding of stem cell research. As Ronald Reagan said, here they go again. Everybody agrees that we must ban human cloning and our substitute does just that, but the difference in this bill is we allow for the very important somatic nuclear cell transfer technology which is being developed and which will be the cure for many diseases that affect millions of people both in the United States and worldwide. I hear the opponent of our substitute saying, oh, no, stem cell research will not be hurt, but that could not be farther from the truth, and here is why. Stem cell research is continuing, but the base bill will ban the somatic nuclear cell transfer research that we are talking about. What this research does at this point is it takes somatic cells, so-called therapeutic cloning techniques, it replaces the nucleus, and it makes new cells of tissues that will cure diseases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and diabetes.”